post bilateral mastectomy swelling and pain

KathiM said:

My girlfriend (who I saw yesterday...she looks TERRIFIC!) had a bilateral mastectomy 5 years ago...she found some VERY wide elastic bandage that she wrapped her chest with. BUT, this was with the approval of her surgeon...
Healing takes time. I know, easy to say....I STILL have tender places from my LUMPectomy over a year ago. My mom, a single mastectomy survivor, has hard 'bumps' here and there, 4 years later, and still gets 'twinges'. My onc said it well when I was complaining about my pain in my shoulder from the lymph node removal..."Don't use it, you'll lose it...healing in this part of the body is by contraction...you will have less and less use if you don't exercise".

Ask your surgeon when and what you can exercise with....

Hugs, Kathi

Definately check with your surgeon. Mine said that some swelling is normal and will go away in time. He hesitated to drain because of the chance of infection, but he also said that it was sometimes necessary, sometimes more than once. He also believes strongly in exercise, but he cautioned to take it easy. They gave me set exercises to do twice a day starting 24 hours after surgery. All of them were easy stretches and took about twenty to thirty minutes to complete each time I did them. The exercise helps the body with drainage as well as prevent contractures (sp? I mean muscle tightness). It also helped me feel back to normal though the exercises were a far cry from what I was used to doing days before. It took over a month before I way back to carrying jugs of milk or the laundry basket, but everything did come back in time. Different mastectomies look different afterward. Sometimes the surgeon does a skin-sparing operation so reconstruction is easier. I didn't want that and requested that the surgeon make mine "neat". He still left some skin folds that I wasn't so happy with. But eventually most of the swelling went down, I'd say, in about two months time. The funny and not so funny feelings took more like three months to quit bothering me. Even now at almost 5 years, I sometimes feel like something is pinching my breast even though it's not there!!! Good luck and prayers your way!

I too just had a bilateral(March 20'07). My plastic surgeon just gave me a band to wear to help with the swelling and to also help get my implants to drop. He also gave me some excerises to do. I would ask about the band it's uncomfortable to wear but it works.

Hi. I just want to tell you that I had a right side mastectomy and implant at the same time; however, the cosmetic surgeon put me in a bra type garment for a week that was too tight. I don't want to scare you, but I want to make sure you do everything with a doctor's permission. I wound up getting necrosis of the breast (all the breast tissue died, leading me to have multiple other surgeries, moving back muscle to the front to rebuild. So don't wrap anything unless your doctor and you go over it first.
xoxoxo
Irene